


tumblr drabbles take two

by blindbatalex



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M, find them and my tumblr somewhere below!, for either cuddling prompts or the way you said i love you prompts, prompt responses cleaned up and posted from tumblr, see the warning for ch. 5!!!, you can still send me these fyi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2018-12-31 19:37:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 5,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12139623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blindbatalex/pseuds/blindbatalex
Summary: A lot of Carraville, some Kunessi and a dash of juander.





	1. cuddling prompt - carraville + while someone is crying

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr (the links below take you there)! Cry about old gay men and/or United with me.
> 
>  
> 
> [cuddling prompts](https://weareunited.tumblr.com/post/163841083401/cuddling-prompts)  
> [the way you said i love you prompts](https://weareunited.tumblr.com/post/164972232291/the-way-you-said-i-love-you)

Jamie inhales, takes a look at the alarm clock on the bedside table.

2.30

That brief point in the night when it’s late enough for Jamie’s insomnia to let him go and too early for Gary’s to claim him.

Gary’s not there now though, no light filtering through the crack below the bathroom door, the sheets on his side of the bed cold. Jamie frees himself of the duvet and wanders out of the bedroom, on his toes somehow, keeping in rhythm with the quiet that blankets the house.

Light filters in from downstairs, soft and yellow. Jamie follows. Wonders what Gary is doing down there, at this time of the night.

Gary with a book, maybe a romance novel, that he only dares take out at night.

Gary _writing_ a book, definitely a romance novel, mortified when Jamie finds him.

Gary in one of his jerseys, the Carragher and the 23 proud on his back, a raised eyebrow, _you like what you see Carra or what?_

Jamie smiles, somewhere between sleep and amusement and fondness. He tiptoes down the stairs, intent to catch his partner in whatever act he’s been hiding from Jamie, or at least intent to drag his Manc ass back to bed, where he belongs. The duvet is nowhere near as warm as Gary.

He stops with two stairs to go. The smile disappears from his lips.

The only source of light in the living room is a single floor lamp by the far side. Gary is sitting on the couch, shrouded in half darkness. Shoulders hunched, a bottle of whiskey on the coffee table. He’s holding a tumbler in one hand—Gary _never_ drinks whiskey—rubbing at his eyes with the other.

 _Gary?,_ , Jamie inquires gently, unsure, Gary’s pain already coursing through his veins. He thought the world would end before he saw a Neville cry and he wants to end the world now, with his bare hands, for whoever is responsible.

Gary jumps a little at the sudden sound. There is a moment, Gary removes his hand and looks up at Jamie, and it’s all there for the world to see, the defeat in his brown eyes, the melancholy that’s etched into the creases on his face, raw and hurting. Then, Gary straightens his back and Jamie watches, transfixed, as he walls up the pain, rearranges his face—almost like magic. Like Jamie is a tech who reminded him they go live in five. Like he told him there is a hungry pack of reporters waiting just outside the door.

“What are you doing up at his hour?” Gary asks, and it’s his voice, perfectly neutral, the same tone he uses when making breakfast, that unfreezes Jamie, sparks anger in his stomach.  
All these months together. Years of friendship before that. _Scrambled or sunny side up, Jamie?_

He walks up and sits next to Gary on the couch, close enough for their knees touch on the cushions.

He throws his arm around Gary’s shoulders in lieu of an answer, intensely aware of how much the risk he’s taking can backfire. However close they have grown there are still boundaries that lie between them like chasms, untested, that they know well enough to retreat before.

Gary turns to look at him, his brow knitted, his shoulders tense. Jamie holds his gaze. “I will go away if you want me to” he says softly. “but you don’t have to do it alone Gaz. You aren’t alone.”

For one long moment Gary doesn’t say anything, just looks. Jamie thinks that Gary will really pull away, tell him to go back to bed, that he will have to lie in bed and stare at the ceiling, his mind still downstairs, helpless.

Then, suddenly, like rain that comes after a drought, Gary sinks into the couch. Jamie feels his shoulders relax under his arm, and with a quiet thank you to the heavens he moves towards Gary, draws him in closer. Gary doesn’t protest, just lies his head on Jamie’s chest with a half broken sigh. Jamie feels the sound reverberate in his chest. He cards his hand through Gary’s short hair, holds him tight like he can anchor them both in place with just his arms and force of will.

He doesn’t know how long they stay like that, buried in the cushions, their bodies pressed together. _I love you,_ he whispers in the dark, and later _it’ll be okay_ when he feels Gary’s shoulders move in quiet sobs. _I’m here,_ he murmurs, and his hand has never stopped stroking Gary’s hair, _I will always be here._

They move towards the end of the couch at some point, Jamie resting his head on the armrest, Gary still in his arms, lying half on top of him. 

He wakes with Gary tugging at his hand. “Go to bed,” Gary is saying, and he looks like himself again, if a bit tired. “The armrest must be murder on your neck.” Jamie groans. Gary is right though—his neck hurts to move and the arm he lay on has gone completely numb.

He sits up. Outside dawn is just breaking, gray-blue.

“Only if you come with.” The bed sounds like heaven but he isn’t ready to let Gary go, not yet.

“Fine,” Gary says as if he is doing Jamie a great favor and pulls Jamie up. Within a minute they are safe under the covers. Jamie drapes an arm around Gary, holds him close enough to feel his breath on his neck. He wonders, just before he drifts off, whether Gary can tell from the warmth that emanates from his arm how much he is loved, just how dear he is to Jamie. He decides to tell him in the morning anyway, just in case.

*

Gary is making breakfast as he is most mornings when Jamie comes down. “Scrambled or sunny side up?” he asks. _Scrambled._ Jamie gives him a covert, scrutinizing look as he makes the tea but Gary seems perfectly fine, chipper as usual.

Around a mouthful of toast Jamie wonders what it would be like to have the words to say where it hurts. Wonders if they can ever let each other be that.

Neither of them brings up the night again.


	2. cuddling prompt - deledier & royling + lazy summer cuddles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> aka things you do for your wife...

There is nothing like summer if you ask Leroy. Nothing like going someplace far away where the sky is as blue as the kit he wears with pride and the sea laughs in shades of coral. Cocktails on the beach. Late nights on the pier, Raheem’s voice barely above a whisper, hand in his own, both of them cloaked by the darkness. Leroy loves it all.

Even more so though, he loves the afternoon naps. He loves lying outside in a hammock, his head safe in the shade, not a tense muscle in his body and the hot air that brushes against his skin lulling him to sleep.

He lets out a happy sigh. Wonders with the last of his conscious thought what Raheem is up to. He will get up in a bit and find out, he decides, but not just yet. Now Leroy needs to sleep.

That is, until he feels a weight solid and very warm pressing against his chest. “Hi,” Raheem whispers as he makes himself comfortable on top of Leroy. The hammock rocks with the addition of the new body. Leroy groans, still half asleep. Pushes away Raheem’s elbow from his mouth so that he can breathe. Raheem is the worst.

“Lay still,” he says, “I will murder you if you make us fall over.” He doesn’t know how effective his threat is given how sleep-laden his voice is (and given how Raheem chuckles, his laughter a deep sound that vibrates through Leroy’s chest.)

Raheem listens though, and lies perfectly still. Soon all is peaceful again, all as it was meant to be and Leroy and Raheem mere specks in the vast quiet space of the summer afternoon.

That is, until.

“Oh hi guys,” Leroy half hears, the sound muffled as though he is underwater, “mind if I join?” He means to say, no whoever you are there is no room, no you can’t but ends up only making a displeased sound instead. And then the next thing he knows he is fully awake and they are all toppling to the ground in one giant heap.

“What the fuck!” he manages to say out loud this time.

“Sorry, sorry,” the same voice, Eric bloody Dier, Eric bloody Dier who had to choose the same bloody country and the same bloody resort as his holiday destination is saying, while they are still lying in a tangled heap on the grass. “Didn’t mean to do that. Sorry.”

Leroy pulls himself up a little to lean on his elbows. He is about to say something along the lines of oh really how the fuck did you think hammocks work? but before he can yet another body throws himself into Leroy’s arms. “Hi Eric, hi guys” the voice of the weight sitting on Leroy says as he wiggles to presumably get to Eric.

He knows all is lost when Raheem, Raheem who should stand by his side and shoo the nasty Spurs players away says cuddle party! instead and snuggles his head into the crook of Leroy’s neck. Above them the hammock – the hammock that was made for a single person, at most two (but not three Eric seriously were you born on Mars) sighs unhappily at his fate. Leroy is enveloped by more arms than he can count and It is indeed a cuddle party.


	3. cuddling prompt - kunessi + in the bath

Kun is tired and he is in pain. He’s pushed himself too hard in training and his knee never misses a chance these days to remind him who has the final word, to scream in his ear that he can’t speed up his recovery by sheer force of will. Kun is old–old enough to know, and still.

Leo admonishes him. _You were supposed to call before you left the training complex Kun, not after._ The hug is nowhere near as long as Kun would have liked either, Leo disappearing up the stairs with a final order to sit.

Leo is chaotic energy, on and off the pitch. He runs and it’s as if the grass catches on fire beneath his feet, he tosses his laptop on the couch without ceremony–-locked but never turned off–-and leaves candy wrappers on the coffee table. He also forgoes a well deserved vacation, the one time he has during the year to rest, to show up in Manchester with a suitcase and the widest grin. Leaves Kun standing at the door with a knot in his throat caught between guilt and love and gratitude.

_Nonsense. I will have you know that Manchester is a prime holiday destination. Besides I hear its footballers are exceptionally hot._

*

“Bath is ready!” Leo calls from upstairs and Kun follows, taking his time with the stairs, a fond smile playing on his lips.

He raises an eyebrow when he makes it there.

There are scented candles on the counter, on the floor. So many of them that the rooms flickers, that their glow, soft and golden, fights against the gray half-light that seeps in from the windows. An old French song plays in the background, quiet and sentimental. The water is invisible underneath the white bubbles.

Leo stands in the middle, hands clasped at his chest and smiles at him with the smugness of someone who knows just how good his handiwork is. _So,_ he asks, _what do you think?_ as if he doesn’t already know the answer.

*

It takes a grand total of two minutes to coax Leo into joining Kun in the bathtub. He tries to wave Kun away by saying he showered in the morning and then with a _but your knee_. He gives in though when Kun reminds him that the best football player in the world should be able figure out how to step into a bathtub without crushing his partner’s injured knee.

Leo gets into bathtub, careful not to step on Kun and it takes them a little bit of moving and rearranging before Leo can settle comfortably on Kun’s lap. His weight is buoyed a little by the water but not by much, and it feels so good, so solid on top of Kun.

Better yet Leo leans back against Kun’s chest until he is resting his head on the edge of the tub. His beard brushes against Kun’s and Kun can hear him–- _feel_ him–-breathe. His warmth blends into the water’s and envelopes Kun. Begins to dissolve away the soreness in his muscles, the sheer weariness that hangs upon him like a storm cloud. Edith Piaf plays from the speakers. Neither of them speak.

Kun watches raindrops tap tap tap against the window and slide down the glass. Next to him Leo’s eyes are closed, a small smile on his lips, his beard a golden brown in the candlelight. There is a lot Kun wants to say and even more he wants to hear, from Leo’s day to what movie he’d like to see tonight. He should probably find a painkiller for his knee at some point too. But for now he stays just where he is, content to soak up the room, happy with Leo in his arms.


	4. the way you said ily - juander + as a goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the angst...hear my quiet sobs.

It’s eerily quiet as the city makes way for the suburbs, an unusual circumstance for Juan’s car. He is aware of David’s presence next to him and painfully so. He can hear David breathing, can almost hear the fleeting edges of his thoughts though they dissolve and disappear before Juan can catch them. 

It’s strange the way you start to mourn someone before he is gone. 

He turns on the radio to combat the oppressive silence and doesn’t expect Despacito of all things to start blaring out. Its upbeat happiness is so out-of-place in the somber car it feels comical. David chuckles too, his voice tinged with surprise and wonder and nostalgia. “They are still playing that thing on the radio?”

Feels like ages ago, that summer when they won the Europa League. Romero stellar in goal but wrong because he wasn’t David. (No one is.) And then summer proper. Walks on the beach and lazy sex and afternoons thrown carelessly away in bed doing nothing. Real Madrid an apparition looming just outside their field of vision as it had been for years. _Please God, not yet._

“Was it ten times we sang it on the way back or was it twelve?” Juan asks, the smile lingering on his lips. It’s a bit pathetic, this rush of nostalgia, a bit pathetic he knew even back then and kept at it anyway. 

“We tried to make Ander and Sergio stop after the tenth time but they wouldn’t listen.” David chuckles again but it falls short of the real thing.

The sign for the airport exit appears out of nowhere, screams two miles.

“Yeah.”

*

The conversation peters out after that. In two miles the international terminal looks grey and dreary. Juan pulls up by the curb. He turns off the music and looks straight ahead, hands still gripping the steering wheel. He doesn’t trust himself to not to say something exceedingly stupid if he looks David in the eye now, something like _please don’t go_.

David unbuckles his seatbelt. Out of the corner of his eye Juan can see him fidgeting where he sits, unsure.

“Don’t forget to text me when you land!” Juan says to prompt him, the cheerfulness in his voice so forced it hurts his ears a little to hear. 

“Juan.” David touches the corner of his jaw, nudging Juan’s face towards him and it’s not fair he gets to do this-–his touch so gentle and reverent, pulling at Juan’s heart against his will.

“I love you,” David says, soft, slowly, like he means every word, like offering an apology, and then, just like that, before Juan has a chance to wipe away at a rebellious tear brimming in his eye, before he can answer, he is gone.

 

_Yeah, but not enough to stay._


	5. the way you said ily - carraville + when i'm dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH WARNING* please proceed with caution. (and no my heart hasn't healed from writing it either.)

Jamie tells Gary he loves him, once. Between Super Sunday and analyzing clips for MNF Jamie’s had a banana for lunch and no time for dinner, and of course they get stuck in traffic on the way to the hotel. “Are you hungry?” Gay asks, raising an eyebrow, when Jamie’s stomach rumbles rather loudly to voice its displeasure. “Hang on, I might have something.” Gary digs through his messenger bag and returns with an entire pack of Jaffa cakes. Jamie’s eyes shine at the sight of the food. “Oh I love you” he exclaims, thinking of the nourishment that lies ahead and of little else. The declaration takes them both by surprise, sucks in all the air in the confined space of the car. Gary’s fingers freeze where he is tearing open the pack. 

Gary pats Jamie on the knee and makes a joke then, something stupid, something about Jamie growing soft in his old age and that’s that. 

The world resumes its spinning. 

*

There is a world where they learn to see each other past the crest they carry so proudly on their hearts sooner, when they are both unattached, and raise four beautiful children together. Gary thinks about it sometimes. Allows his mind to wonder to makeshift five-a-sides in the backyard and lazy breakfasts on their off-days. 

There is a world where he gets to come home to Jamie, but it’s not this one. 

_Not yet_ , Gary says in the dark sometimes, and even manages to convince himself of it on the off-day.

*

“Gary.” Gerrard sounds tired, hollow. Every last thought of _why on earth?_ Gary had dissolves at the immediacy of the word, replaced by a sinister knot in his throat. “I’m calling about. Jamie– he–” Gerrard’s voice breaks. It takes him three tries to finish his sentence. Gary’s stopped the car and buried his face on the steering wheel long before he does.

*

People try to talk to him. The medical examiner tells him that he didn’t suffer and the priest talks about God and heaven but Gary isn’t listening. He isn’t listening because there is nothing to listen to, nothing to be said, just a cold hollowness in his chest where Jamie used to be.

(He almost does once though, when he tries to leave the wake early and Gerrard holds him where he is with a strong hand on his shoulder. _He’d want you here. We want you here._

 _Do you know?_ Gary doesn’t ask. _Did you know?_ )

*

He doesn’t go to the funeral. It’s not his place, he can’t look Nicola or Jamie’s mum in the eye and isn’t sure he could stand upright through it all either.

He does go afterwards, though. It’s started snowing a little while back, he is dimly aware of flurries brushing against his face, getting caught in his hair.

 _I loved you you know,_ Gary whispers into the cold air. A wet chuckle escapes his lips. He’d give up every trophy he’s ever won, every time he put on the jersey to know Jamie is alright. Alive. And none of it matters. There is no one there to take his bargain. It’s the funniest joke Gary ever heard.

Underneath him a fine dusting of snow already covers the fresh earth and the bouquets, just next to where he kneels. Gary rests his head on the gravestone, runs his hand through the black letters. Dusk is falling and he is alone.


	6. the way you said ily - kunessi + as a hello

It’s past 1 am when they make it to the team hotel, the entire Manchester contingent dragging their suitcases (and feet) behind and huffing about unreliable air service.

Kun slides the key in the lock quietly and tiptoes inside. The bathroom light is on, filtering gentle yellow light into the room, a provision surely meant for his benefit. He smiles at it as he toes off his shoes, and then at the sleeping figure of Leo under the duvet. In the dim light, Kun can just barely make the outlines of his beard and his brow that seems to be furrowed in concentration even in sleep.

The frustration and the fatigue that nagged at him the entire way over slides off his shoulders at the sight. His Leo. So beautiful and perfect, and here where Kun can hold him.

Kun shrugs off the rest of his clothes and leaves them in a heap on the floor, slips into the bed in his boxers.

Leo shifts at the sudden motion, turns to face Kun. Kun doesn’t need to see well to know he is smiling. “I love you,” Leo whispers with a voice that cracks and drips with sleep as he caresses Kun’s cheek. “Welcome.”

“I love you too,” Kun whispers back and as he buries his face in the nook of Leo’s shoulder and inhales his all too familiar smell all for once is well in the world.


	7. the way you said ily - carraville + a whisper in the ear

They are analyzing Arsenal’s surprise win over Everton, side by side by the smart screen, business as usual, only a hair’s breadth between their hands on the side of the screen. “As I mentioned earlier–” Jamie is saying, but he never gets to finish because the studio plunges into darkness mid sentence, like a massive switch has been turned off.

The room is perfectly still for a moment in the dark before it breaks into commotion and into a variety of expletives from the crew. David springs into action with a _why aren’t the backup generators running?_ Someone pulls out a flashlight.

Gary and Jamie sort of just look at each other with the unease reserved for those who know they should help while having no idea how.

“Can’t believe power is out right in the middle of MNF,” Gary says after a moment, “you’d think they have fail safes in place for this kind of thing.”

“You don’t say,” Jamie retorts as someone rushes past him with a _get me the tech department Will! Now!_ “Tell me something i don’t know Gaz.”

“Something you don’t know.”

“Yeah. New information. I know the concept is foreign to you.”

Gary turns towards him. Jamie can see his lopsided smile, even under the dim glow of the emergency lights. It suits him, in a way, maybe because there is less of him to see.

“How is this for new information, nugget?”

Gary places a hand on the small of Jamie’s back and leans in with all he’s got, until his mouth is an inch away from Jamie’s ear.

“I–” Gary whispers, taking his time, his voice raspy and low. The air from his breath, hot against Jamie’s ear, and wet, sends a shiver down Jamie's spine. He knows exactly what he’s doing, the bloody bastard, and worse-- He could finish that sentence any way imaginable, he could say _I’d like some pasties, please_ and it would still take everything Jamie’s got to not to turn and kiss him right here, in the middle of a forced intermission of unknown length from live TV, cameras and dignity be damned.

It scares Jamie sometimes, how much of himself he’s willingly given away.

“I–” Gary says again, 

“I love you.”

 

There is a massive _click!_ and the lights come back on, before Jamie can respond. Gary moves away, to a respectable distance (which is to say he doesn’t move much at all). Jamie blinks. He has a sense his mouth is hanging open but every attempt to close it results in him looking (and feeling) more and more like a dumbfounded fish as it opens right back again on its own. Gary is smiling at him in a way that’s saccharine and infuriatingly smug, pleased with himself. Jamie wants to smack it right off his mouth, wants the three words to stop echoing over and over in his mind.

 _Gentlemen,_ David says and politely clears his throat, having appeared back next to them as if out of thin air. “We are going live in twenty seconds!” someone from the team shouts.

They resume their positions. Jamie forces his eyes back onto the screen, does his best to ignore his burning cheeks.

*

Later though when he takes a moment to look during the ad break, he sees that a faint pink blush adorns Gary’s cheeks too, behind the layers of cool. _You absolute twat_ , Jamie thinks, _I love you too._


	8. the way you said ily - carraville + muffled through a door

There is nothing special about the morning. Just a regular start to a regular day.

Jamie groans and allows himself to bury his head in the pillows for just a second longer before rolling off the edge of the bed. A couple of birds are singing right outside their window, way too chipper for the hour. Morning light, yellow-ish and strong, filters in through a crack in the thick curtains. Gary is already up, the shower running in the bathroom.

Jamie washes his face in the other bathroom and changes into his trousers with one eye still closed. They are running out of socks, having neglected laundry (or finding a new cleaning service) for too long and he has to dig through the drawer for a good minute before he can locate a pair. The door knob to the kitchen is getting a bit wobbly too and probably can use a look. He will talk to Gary about it tonight, and remember to do it before the game (because as he quickly found out it’s definitely a loss cause to try to do it afterwards.)

Jamie locates his keys, and with some difficulty his wallet and gets up to leave. Just before he does though he stops by the bathroom door, his lips nudging up in a smile. _See you Gary,_ he says to the door and a second later–- _I love you._ Inside the water is still running–-no one who has played professional football for decades should be allowed to take showers this long–and it doesn’t stop at Jamie’s words. Jamie doesn’t expect it to. And so he heads down the stairs and leaves, hugging himself a little closer in the chilly morning air, the smile still playing on his lips.

*

 _I love you too,_ Gary whispers through the water running over his shoulders, _nugget_. He will stop the water one of these days, he really will so he can drag Jamie in and say it to his face instead.


	9. the way you said ily - carraville + loud so everyone can hear

Old habits die hard, as Gary finds out. For a year after he retires he wakes up at least once a week all set to head to training. Finds himself at Carrington six times because he’s gone on autopilot and the next thing he knows he is staring at the gates of the training complex instead of the restaurant or the office he is supposed to be at.

It’s hard, when you have lived and breathed football for so long you can no longer tell where you end and it begins.

*

Never in his wildest dreams has he imagined he’d fall for a Scouser, and yet fall for Jamie he does. Jamie, the living embodiment of Liverpool FC, open his chest and you’ll find a Liver bird there Carragher. Cosmic irony in its purest.

Gary tries to leave.

It doesn’t work.

Jamie is lazy kisses in the morning and a strong arm around his waist at night. He is the smartest co-pundit Gary’s had by miles, a brilliant opponent, and he is an even better friend. And later he is the quiet I love you’s too, and promises whispered in the dark.

They sleep in on their off days sometimes. Jamie insists on making breakfast and burns the bacon every time. It’s more than Gary could have ever asked for.

*

The first time he tells Jamie he loves him outside the quiet privacy of their house, Gary thinks he might just die. They are at a wedding–-a distant cousin of Jamie’s and Jamie invites him to a slow dance with a tug on his hand. Gary looks at him, his eyebrows shoot to the sky as if to say _really?_ panic as old as football already welling up in his chest. _Yes,_ Jamie says with his eyes, _really._

Gary takes his hand then, reminding himself it doesn’t matter anymore, people already know. Like Ryan said, _the silver lining to being outed seeing as you have no wife._

Jamie looks gorgeous in his three piece, a deep purple bespoke suit that hugs his form, tells the world just how fit he is even now. He smiles at Gary as he places a hand on his waist and guides him to the melody. Their smiles still feel too much like apologies these days, their touches still too tentative.

They dance. Neither of them has even a marginal sense of rhythm to speak of, and yet here they are, together, close enough to feel the other’s breath and that is something. It’s definitely more than Gary dared to hope just a couple of weeks ago.

“I love you,” Gary says just as the song ends, wishing it could wipe away the things they said then, words that echo in his head at night, words that keep him up. I love you too, Jamie replies, barely above a whisper, and there is an edge of despair to his voice as if he is thinking the same thing.

There are other couples around them, relatives and friends and acquaintances. They are busy with their own partners and lives, and it still feels to Gary as if they shouted it, as if everyone in the room heard and is keeping quiet just out of politeness. His mouth has gone dry all of a sudden and he can hear his heart beating in his ears.

Gary closes his eyes and lets Jamie’s touch ground him, forces his breaths to even. Jamie is looking at him when he opens them again. _It’s alright,_ Jamie says, gentle, quiet, _we will be alright._


End file.
